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Having to do with some students of English in colleges and universities, we deemed it fit to post some pieces on communication skills. These we subdivided into subtitles as in: Writing Pro, Reading Pro, Speaking Pro and Listening Pro.
First off, we'd like to get you informed about the English communication skills. The communication skills are in actives and passives. The active skills are mnemonically referred to as I DO on this website while the passives are I GAIN. This simply means you use active skill when you speak or write but it is passive when you listen or read. An active skill will automatically necessitate a passive one, i.e. speaking/listening; writing/reading.
Our writing pro has always been well-packaged, crosschecked, proofread by experts in the field and therefore, becomes reliable all the time. Dealing with communication skill on this website may include stressing yourself a bit if you truly desire better results. You may have to go through some webinars which will be provided on this website if need be.
This present article will take you through some essential punctuation marks provided you've already understood the structure of a sentence.
If you think you haven't grasped the scope the sentence structure or syntactic arrangement already, (and you think it could hinder your understanding of this article) kindly find our lecture on sentence structure first.
In this part-one punctuation article, you will be taken through punctuations like:
The hyphen (-)
The comma (,)
The semi-colon(;)
The colon; (:) and
The full stop(.).
The hyphen is a conjoining mark that is used for bonding two or more words to become one. Ex.: Mr Stone was an attorney-general. Buhari was a head-of-state. There are many by-standers. The hyphenated words above are one word each because they are conjoined. Actually, the word by-standers can also be written without the hyphen; as in bystanders. This shows it's a word not two. Now, how many compound words can you think of? Do write them out.
Since human being isn't a machine that needs no break, it is therefore necessary that we take breaks when we read, and that applies to writing too because you must have your audience in mind. Comma is a slight break between two words or clauses. Comma can be used in a list of items or mark the crossing over between two or more clauses. Ex.: "she has an abattoir, a pen of poultries, a farmland and a fish pond". Here, comma is used in the list of possessions but different in: " Since you aren't a soldier, you won't be allowed to visit a war zone". In this sentence, the comma is used to mark a rest between two clauses ...a soldier and ...war zone.
Another punctuation of rest is the semi-colon. Although it marks rest too, yet there is a nuance of meaning between them. Semi-colon has longer rest than the comma. It can also be used in a list but only to mark off the last item. Ex.: " She has an abattoir, a pen of poultries, a farmland; and a fish pond". " The items needed are:
1. 3 tubers of yam,
2. 7 crates of egg; and
3. 1 basketful of sweet pepper". Did you notice how the semi-colons are used? Good if you did.
Another instance in which a semi-colon can be used is the solving of comma splice error (find that out in our article for avoiding sentence pitfalls). Consider the statements below.
She is a femme fatale, I can't marry her.
She is a femme fatale; I can't marry her.
The first version is erroneous because it's written in comma splice but the second version proffers a solution by placing a semi-colon in the position of the initial comma.
The Colon is basically used for listing. It links the preamble to the listed items. Ex.: the items needed are:. When you read the above statement, you realise that it sends you a signal that some things are forthcoming and you yourself expect the list. In a high-school essay writing, the teacher teaches that the preamble has to flow into answers. What he means is now in the statement below.
Causes of accidents at Mumbai are:
1. Drivers drive recklessly
2. Some receive calls while driving.
As you can see, the colon enables the preamble, causes of...., flow into the answer sentences as if each of them formed a single sentence with the preamble.
Finally is the full stop. It is also referred to as the final. This punctuation shows finality in sentences. A sentence begins with a capital letter and ends in a full stop. Examples are:
> The general fought well.
> That boy had to learn in the hard way.
Learn other punctuations at punctuation 2 and punctuation 3 of D-polyglot.